I work in tiles and the normal splashback height is 600 mm. This is because overhead cupboards are usually this height above the bench top. In your case you don't have this so can do anything you like. If you tile to low 200mm etc the wall gets damaged - paint doesn't wear like tiles. There are many materials you can use as a splash back but most aren't durable eg Perspex. Glass and tiles have the edge. Textured splashes are in hence the hand made tiles. If grout annoys you use large tiles you can get them up to 1200mm long these days with rectified edges you only have 1.5mm gap. Use sealer on the grout, they are now easy clean. If you have the money tile to the bulkhead a much more luxurious look. Maybe in a charcoal. I don't know how these gaps are getting so dirty. I use spray and wipe with a toothbrush occasionally and it takes little time and always clean.

Apologies. The photos did not post in the correct order. The Zoe is the more curved tap, the Eve is straight at the back and curved at the top. Thanks again

Jessica Craig, I thought you might like to know this. When my daughter was a baby and I took her for swimming lessons, I met another wonderful Mum Wendy and her daughter, Sophie. Sophie's father had recently passed away and so Wendy was trying to adjust to the hand that fate had dealt her. They had not long purchased their house too. We have remained very close all these years and I can report that both Soph and Wendy are a force to be reckoned with. Sophie (now 15) is a talented singer, is doing well at school and has oodles of personality. Wendy is studying online and working towards fulfilling her dream of one day writing a children's book. The house has been renovated and is a very warm and welcoming home. It has not always been an easy road as single mum for Wendy, but it continues to get richer as the years move by. I hope that in some of your harder moments, this may bring some small level of comfort to you.

yep, I can see this is a tricky one then and appreciate you've already worked through negotiating some of these constraints - it's always a case of more than meets the eye with these projects..... But there's still something bugging me about this one conceptually. I think it's the fact considering the full scope in that you're doing a reasonable amount (which will cost a fair bit I imagine) but it's essentially replacing and if not losing some property amenity in the process (garage gone). When you have an opportunity like this I always dig deep to find the creative opportunity to really maximise the investment. It's a relatively smallish home, but on these ones the idea is not to tighten them up further, but to open them up and increase the feeling of space more than what they are...the key is in the planning. I suppose it's the stuff that we don't want to be noticing that I'm picking upon such as the idea of a main bathroom opposite double doors to the formal living is not ideal. oklouise's option is better but it's still kind of visible from the entry.... It's like you've got the various "spaces" boxes ticked with the rooms etc but the flow/transition is a little clunky. Walking through a kitchen, then the laundry to finally get to the loo is not an ideal set-up. Maybe it's the central passage that's closing it in an may not even need to be there so the formal living is open...I don't know and it's too involved/complex to resolve in a post/on a forum as ultimately this stuff comes back to the project brief requirements. Advice I have is like always trust your instinct and if it's not sitting right for you in certain areas then it's not resolved yet.....this may need a bit of unpicking and revisiting to get the best outcome....but just my professional opinion ;) best of luck with it PD